


an echo in hollow places

by Ias



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Cold Weather, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hair Brushing, Loyalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5518523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a time when the youngest of Haleth's personal guard revered her leader as a hero. But the road through Nan Dungortheb is fraught with peril, and many things are lost along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an echo in hollow places

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elleth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/gifts).



Haleth’s people wander through a land of eternal shadow, as featureless and unending as the ocean they have never seen.

A foul vapor hangs in the air, choking out the sky and the stars, going from a noxious, billowing white in the daytime to a darkness so deep it seems to wrap around the torches and strangle them. Frost settles on everything, cold and biting, yet it never snows or rains—the people go thirsty. This is a place that despises the light, hatred seeping out from the very stones themselves. In the darkness and the cold, something breeds.

Tellan wrenches her dagger from the body of the monster, careful to avoid its caustic blood. When first they crossed into Nan Dungortheb, the creatures waited in ravines webbed with shadow and preyed only on those foolish enough to stray from the group. Quickly Haleth’s people learned better than to wander into the eternal twilight beyond the torches, but not before the creatures gained a taste for their blood. Now people are dragged from the campfires where they sit with their family. Though the choking fog prevents the passage of any light, it does nothing to smother the screams.

Tellan wipes her blade on the dirty ground until it is free of blood, and looks up at the one who has led them into this awful place.

“That was well-done,” Haleth says.

“Thank you, my lady.” Tellan cleans the dirt from her blade and jams it back into its sheath. It was scarcely a year ago that she blooded her first kill, skewering an orc on a sharpened kitchen knife when it came after her and her younger brother. Haleth herself had seen it done and commented on Tellan’s natural talent, even as the knife trembled uncontrollably in Tellan’s inexperienced hand. Now, she kills almost daily, and feels no remorse for it. Looking into the shiny black eyes of the spiderlike creatures that seemed to twitch even in death, she knows it is a necessity.

Haleth watches her with a wry smile on her face, her own swords dark with smoking blood. The woman’s face is not young, and neither is it beautiful; her hair is a dark, wiry mass partially braded down her back, and her sharp nose gives her a hawkish expression. Once it as a face Tellan had adored. From the moment Tellan realized she had to fight, she had fought with one goal only: to qualify for Haleth’s personal guard,  as close to the woman who had once been Tellan’s hero. She had succeeded in her dream, only to find that dreams were not suitable sustenance to wake up to every morning.

“They have not been so bold as to attack me before,” Haleth muses. She nudges the creature’s carcass with a boot.

“Perhaps if my lady kept herself deeper within the column, there would be less danger,” Tellan suggests, out of obligation rather than actual hope of convincing her.

Sure enough Haleth snorts and shakes her head. “I will not cringe away from the danger I ask my people to brave.” She cleans her swords quickly, and sheathes them with a rasp of metal. “Still. There were many easier targets the beasts could have sought after. Yet they came for me, the leader.”

“They have no language or thought,” Tellan argues. “They only distinguish between us to see which looks best to eat.”

Haleth grins at her roguishly. “Then I must be a fine morsel indeed.”

Tellan smiles a thin smile and looks away. Once such banter was all she could have asked for. Now Haleth’s words fall flat on her ears.

“We should keep moving,” Haleth continues, her eyes scanning the desolate rocks and fog around them. “This is a bad place among worse still. Yet there is nowhere to go but forward.”

Tellan nods, following Haleth to rouse the people. Yet there were some that spoke of turning back. They had no hope of a land beyond this hell, and claimed that Haleth had led them into a realm of Morgoth’s own creation. They would have taken the Elf-Lord’s offer, lived on his land as vassals though he might claim it otherwise. They whispered of pride which had driven them forth. Of weakness. “We can only blame ourselves,” Tellan hears an old man saying. “We were the ones who thought a woman could lead us.”

Tellan’s hands tighten at her side. Once she would have stepped forward and defended Haleth’s honor without question, speaking of Haleth’s wisdom and valor. Now she reprimands the speaker sharply, and moves on. She cannot defend Haleth without shouldering the weight of what their leader has allowed to happen. Such a burden is beyond her.

They stop for the night in an open space, having learned better than to box themselves in. There is no way to mark the sun—the days pass only in the color of the fog, and the slow leeching of heat from the air. Haleth’s tent is small, little different from the others her people use—the animal hides that protect it from the weather seem to do little to keep the warmth in or the cold out.

Tellan sits near the door, breathing warmth into her hands as the night slowly passes. Outside, another guard waits; the rest are patrolling the camp on Haleth’s orders. Once, there were many more of Haleth’s guards; picked for their bravery, they were some of the first to be slain. Tellan knows that the time may come when Haleth requires such a sacrifice from her—and she will give it, for that is her duty. She does not follow out of obligation. They loyalty that drew her to Haleth’s side in the first place has not dimmed. Rather, it has gained the company of other emotions. Fear. Doubt. Anger. Blame.

Tellan is not certain she has ever seen Haleth sleep, even in the darkest hours of the night. Their leader sits up, inspecting maps or caring for her gear, eyes bright and attentive even as Tellan herself struggles with wakefulness. Tonight is one of those nights: Haleth sits on the bedding spread out on the hard ground with the maps strewn out around her, marking them with a piece of charcoal as Tellan keeps watch. It has been a long day in a series of long days, and her eyes grow heavier every moment. It’s the cold that keeps her awake, chewing into her back from the tent flap behind her, turning her skin painful at first and then numb entirely. Tellan wishes to rise and pace, to warm her limbs with movement, but she is Haleth’s private guard for the night and she will not disgrace herself with a show of weakness. She flexes her hands in her lap and her toes in her boots, watching her breath fog in front of her.

A sigh from the bedding draws Tellan’s attention. Haleth slowly sets down the maps, her movements as slow as an old woman with painful joints. It seems that the shadows beneath her eyes have grown much deeper, even without the flickering light of the fire contorting her face.

“I require sleep,” Haleth announces. She retrieves something from the pack near her bed. “But first, you must help me.”

Tellan warily rises to her feet. Haleth holds something out towards her—it’s only when she steps forward that she realizes it is a comb. “Do you mind?” Haleth says, though Tellan knows it would scarcely matter if she did. “I find it helps me relax.”

Tellan nods, taking the comb from her hand and settling down behind the woman at her behest. Her hands hesitate before the mass of Haleth’s hair, tangled as it was from days of hard travel. Its texture is as wiry as a boar’s, yet it lies flatter on Haleth’s back than the dark mass of hair that stands away from Tellan’s head. Tellan begins on Haleth’s braids, pulling them apart strand by strand with her fingers. The maps crinkle under Haleth’s fingers as she continues to inspect them, silent and patient under Tellan’s cold-clumsy hands. Once the braids are free, Tellan sets to work on the tangles, quickly abandoning the comb once again to untangle them with her fingers.

It is strangely soothing to slowly tame Haleth’s wild mass of hair. The warmth of the other woman’s body so close to her has already made the feeling return to Tellan’s fingers. The temptation to bury her hands into Haleth’s warm hair is almost too great. Yet the intimacy of this grooming is already strange and unfamiliar to Tellan—a dull hollow opens up under her heart as she starts with the comb. Before, Haleth was a leader, a commander, one to be respected and obeyed, and the blood on her hands was merely a sign of the burdens a leader must bear. Here, with Tellan’s hands stroking over her hair, she is only a woman with her pride and her mistakes.

“You have served me well, Tellan.”

Tellan stiffens under the unexpected praise, her hands hesitating for a moment in Haleth’s hair. “I have only done my duty.”

“You have done it better than most, especially for one so young.”

“I’m twenty, my lady,” Tellan says, hiding the familiar irritation as best she could.

Haleth merely chuckles, but the sound is a grim one. She does not turn around to meet Tellan’s gaze, but Tellan can sense that she is nonetheless marking her words carefully. “Do you trust me? You may speak freely here.”

Tellan was quiet for a long while, turning the question over in her mind. She is of the woman’s personal guard. If she truly did not trust Haleth’s ability to lead, she would have excused herself as unfit for her duties long ago. Whoever guarded their leader should believe in her, as well; yet still, Tellan hesitated. “I trust you as a leader,” she said at last.

“That is not what I asked,” Haleth said quietly.

Tellan knew she was on dangerous ground; she did not know what darkness rushed beneath ice creaking under her feet, yet it was too late for her to step back. “I believe you will do what is best for our people, no matter the cost.”

“But?” Haleth prompts.

Tellan takes a breath. The empty hollow in her heart is growing larger now, filling her whole chest with the sensation of nothingness. “But sometimes, the cost is too high.”

“You speak of your brother.” The words steal the breath from Tellan’s lungs; she freezes, motionless, as Haleth continues to speak. “I remember him well. One of the first taken, when we entered this accursed land.” The smile on Haleth’s lips carries no joy. “I admit, for a while I expected you to attempt to kill me—you were positioned well enough to do so, and certainly had the motive.”

At long last Tellan finds the words to speak. She forces her hands to continue their motions, combing Haleth’s hair stroke by stroke. “Yet you did not send me away.”

“No. I did not. I wished to see what you would do.” Haleth twists around, laying a hand on Tellan’s to still the motion of her comb. The woman’s eyes bore into her own, yet Tellan meets it without fear. “You did not try to kill me.”

Swallowing, Tellan shakes her head.

Haleth’s eyes watched her, unreadable. “Why?”

At last, Tellan looks away. Her hand on the comb is white-knuckled. “I had already lost one whom I cared for. I could not bear to destroy another.”

The truth of the statement cuts straight through her, never before spoken aloud. Yes, she had loved Haleth—when her brother died, Tellan had hated her as well. Her childlike awe of their leader had turned into something else, love and pain wrapped together, bitterness stirred in with the sweet. Voicing it to Haleth now is in itself an attack: _This is what has laid festering inside of me. If you wish for my understanding, first you must look it in the eye._

A hand raises to Tellan’s cheek, bringing her gaze bath to Haleth’s once more. The woman’s eyes are gentle, yet it is only the softness of cotton wrapped around steel. “I cannot tell you that I would undo my actions,” Haleth says softly. “That if I had known what was to happen to your brother, that I would not have led us here. I knew the risks. We all did.”

Tellan nods slowly. Haleth’s palm on her cheek is like a brand. “I know,” she says. “That is why you are our leader.”

Haleth’s thumb strokes over Tellan’s cheekbone. “I will not ask for your forgiveness,” she murmurs. “All I can do is offer you whatever comfort you ask of me.”

Tellan stares at her, inspecting the face she had loved so long, as a hero, a leader, and then as a woman. Haleth gives no gifts lightly. Neither would she offer something she herself did not wish to give.

Slowly, Tellan leaned forward. The comb left forgotten on the bedding beside her, she raised her hand to Haleth’s freshly-brushed hair. The woman smiled, an expression more gentle than Tellan was accustomed to seeing on her worn and wearied face. Such strangeness demanded to be explored in full. Tellan pressed her lips to that smile, and tasted its softness and its warmth.

Haleth let her set the pace, responding to Tellan’s movements without pushing forward herself. Tellan kissed her slowly, moving their lips together in careful, experimental motions. She could feel the tension in Haleth’s body, and knew that the other woman longed for more—to press her down onto the bedding and chase after her tongue, to taste every inch of her skin. Tellan felt the same yearning as well, the need to touch and be touched, to share some sort of comfort in the cold and awful place.

Yet too soon she pulled back, her hand in Haleth’s hair preventing the woman from pursuing her. The touch of Haleth’s lips, long-imagined as they were, had not slaked the emptiness in Tellan’s chest. She sat with their foreheads pressed together, Haleth’s lips closed and a rueful smile on her lips—as if she had known that this would happen, yet hoped otherwise.

“There is no comfort for me here,” Tellan said. “It will not bring him back. It will not clean his blood from your hands.”

Haleth bowed her head, her eyes veiled. “I understand,” she said, her tone without hesitation. Tellan knows she could have left it at that, could stand without another word. And yet for all the anger and pain inside of her, in the end love wins out. “Guide us home,” she says softly. “Let me look on the lands that will be ours. I will see them in my brother’s stead, and know he did not die in vain.”

Haleth looks up into the fervent light burning in Tellan’s eyes. She clasps her guard’s shoulder just as she might have on the battlefield. “I will give you that, if it is in my power. For you. For him. For our people.”  

Tellan nods. “I believe that you will. And I will do my duty, to ensure that you do.”

Haleth grins. “Then I will hold you to that oath, and should you fail you will have my angry shade to contend with.” Reaching behind her head, she quickly pulls her hair into a single braid before lying back on her bedding. “You are relieved of duty for the night” she says. “Find your rest. Tomorrow, our journey continues.”

As tempting as the warmth of bed is, something spurs Tallen onward, out of the warmth and the promise of sweetness it holds. It drives her out of Haleth’s tent, past the other guard standing vigilant watch outside. She wanders through the camp, past watchfires burning against the ever-present fog, meeting weary eyes that stare into the darkness as if they could reach through it to the light beyond. For the first time in a long time, Tellan is not afraid. She stares with them into the shifting gloom before her, and feel the gentle stirring of hope.

The Elves say the world was created from the Void. Gazing through the dark nothingness around her, Tellan turns towards rebirth.


End file.
